Today we watched Little House on the Prairie! The kids really enjoyed having a visual with what we have been reading since August!  After the movie was over, we compared and contrasted the book to the movie and discussed what was different!  Turns out, there was a lot the movie left out from the book and the kids were commenting on every detail!  We also did a little research on Little House and life on the prairie and we discovered a great website I wanted to share!

www.littlehousebooks.com

There are tons of resources and games the kids can play as well as cooking ideas and craft books!  I also reenforced to the kids that they must ALWAYS ask for permission before getting on the computer. 

Reader's Theater!

Today we discussed the importance of reading fluently.  We need to pause at commas and periods and work on our overall flow of reading.  We had our first Reader's Theatre of the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  The kids did a great job of reading their lines and were very excited to do more.  We will do another script with different actors next week! 

Puzzle Mania!

This past week, we focused on Synergizing - working together to complete a goal!  On Friday, we had Puzzle Mania where the students grouped together in teams and then worked together to complete a 100 piece puzzle!  They loved it and really worked well together coming up with a plan and then putting it into action!

The Money Exchange Game!

On Tuesday, the kids learned how to play the Money Exchange Game!  They loved this game so much they chose to play it today instead of going to our computer lab time after specials! WOW! :) The kids play with a partner and have game boards for $1 up to $100. They also have a dice and a "bank" of money.  When you roll the die, you add that amount of money to the board.  If you have $5 one's in your bank and you roll a 5, you add $5 to the 5 column, but then you can exchange from the bank your 2, 5's for a $10 bill!  All of them seemed to do really well with this! 

We also had our spelling workshop today and the kids worked on spelling activities within their groups!  Thanks for all your support with this!  Once the check up is done on Friday, I will make new words based on the kids needs for next week!  

Today we drew cards for what Habit 6-Synergizing looks like!  Ask your child what they drew! 

We also have studied Who, What, When, Where and Why and How the past 2 days in stories!  This will tie into our writing for our personal narrative - "My Ouch Story".  Today, before writing, we read Rocket Writes a Story. We began pre writing today by generating Inspiration words, just like Rocket did.

Yesterday, we created a "curious" poster based on Laura Ingalls Wilder - our first Author as a Rock Star!   Our curious poster consists of things we are curious to learn about Laura!  I encouraged the kids to "think outside the box" and boy did they ever!  I was expecting surface questions, but instead the kids were curious to know if Laura wrote stories as a child, what her favorite book was as a little girl and did she illustrate her stories! AMAZING! :) Tomorrow we will start researching together using the SmartBoard our answers to our curious questions. 

Outdoor Scavenger Hunts are the Best!

On Friday, before it got cold, we went outside and had our outdoor scavenger hunt! The kids worked in teams of 3 to complete the mission! They had a blast and this helped work on synergizing - working together!

Enjoy the pics! :)

PICTURE DAY UPDATE!

I have to apologize...I had my dates mixed up!

PICTURE DAY IS TUESDAY, September 18!!  Please change it on your calendars if you put the 17th.

Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience!

Way to go 2nd Grade!

The kids earned their first goal of an Outdoor Scavenger Hunt!  They worked really hard to show leadership skills in the classroom and in the halls therefore tomorrow (weather pending) we will have an outdoor scavenger hunt looking for nature.  They will "synergize" together to solve the outdoor hunt!

The new goal the kids decided on was extra recess!  They were super proud to have earned 40 inches in 4 weeks!  Awesome!

Today, after our read aloud, the kids focused on characters from our story Little House On The Prairie.  We did scrap art of a character we liked the best.  They could choose from Ma, Pa, Laura, Mary, Carrie and Jack! We finished the scrap art and then tomorrow we will write a short paragraph describing that character and how they children can make a connection to that character.  We've been discussing the character traits of each person in the story all along and I think they have very much decided who they are like the most!  They love this book!

Reminder that Picture Day is on Monday!

As always, email me with any questions or concerns or just about a funny story! :) I love to hear the positives as well!

It's a Beautiful Day!

Today was a beautiful day and I just couldn't bear the thought of being inside during work...so....we went outside to do our writing! :) The kiddos heard a suspensful story of my dog, Joey and then we mapped the beginning, middle and end of my story!  We began our free writing today of a topic from our Authority List we generated yesterday!  Today, we only focused on the beginning of our story instead of jumping right to the end.  Tomorrow we will do the middle and Thursday we will write the ending. 

In math we played Number Top It.  I highly recommend playing it at home if you can. The kids loved it and it's a great tool to learn place value and greater than or less than! 

Get the kids outside if you can! :) It's too nice to be inside. Have a fantastic evening!

Week 4!

Hi Parents!

I want to thank all of you for coming to Open House this past week!  I know it's definitely hard to get back into the swing of things so making time to come means the world to me! :) Thank you!!  If you weren't able to make it, no worries!!  The paperwork went home that I passed out and if you have any questions, please email me! Thanks in advance!

Sneak Peak for this week!

In reading we will be learning how to write recommendation letters for books we've read and also we will be reinforcing the Guidelines for Reading Workshop that we created last week.  Reading groups will start at the beginning of October - maybe earlier if I can get all the assessments done.

In writing we will be making an authority list on Monday that helps us pick topics to write about.  This week we will also be looking at Beginning, Middle and End.  All this week we will be breaking apart writing a story and really making sure our story makes "sense" with the timeline process of writing.  So often in 2nd grade, the kids' thoughts can get mixed up and sometimes the students write the middle part at the beginning and it's very fluid.  We will be working on making clear separation between these parts of our writing and continuing this lesson throughout the year.

In word study and spelling, we will do a "practice" week for what homework will look like next week.  The kids will be getting 10 practice spelling words tomorrow that will be in their planner.  They will complete the homework with me in class this week.  Then on Friday, we will have a "practice" spelling test to get into the habit and routine of taking spelling tests.  So no homework this week for spelling! :) In word study we will be focusing on beginning and middle consonant blends such as br, dr, tr, sl, etc.  We will be generating lists for these and hanging them in our room to refer to when writing.

In Math we are working on place value still.  The kids really seem to get ones and tens, but I'm working on hundreds with them.  We will also be working on odd and even numbers and >,<, or =.  The kids will learn to evaluate number sentences to know which one is >,<, or =.

In Social Studies, we will look at Community Citizenship by focusing on Habit 6-Synergizing!  This means to work together to complete a task!  We do a lot of synergizing in 2nd grade so this is very important!  We will also be looking at citizenship in our communities and how our leaders must Synergize to complete a goal!

DON'T FORGET!! WE HAVE OUR PRIME TIME WEDNESDAY THIS WEDNESDAY!!  SCHOOL BEGINS AT 11:00 A.M.

Thanks again for a wonderful first few weeks of school!!

-Mrs. Hurak

This Upcoming Week

What's going on in our room this week! :)

Reading: we are looking at non fiction and fiction texts.  We will also be continuing to work on our reading workshop and getting it all set up before we start our reading groups.  

Math: Our focus this week is place value and skip counting by 5's, 10's, 100's and 1000's.  

Writing: We will be doing our "What We Did Over Summer Vacation" writing.  Look for them at Open House!

Word Study: This week will begin word study.  We will look at consonant clusters with beginning blends such as "br", "st", etc.  All week, we will be making our consonant scroll for the room.

Social Studies: We are starting History on Friday!  The focus will be comparing past and present.  

Last week, we looked at Habit 3 - Put first things first.  We decided it's important to work first then play.  This week, we will dig deeper with that habit and also be introduced to Habit 6 - Synergizing, or working together to do better.  

Specials schedule for the week: 

Tuesday: Library

Wednesday: P.E.

Thursday: Music

Friday: Art

Don't forget to come to Open House on Thursday night!  The kids have worked very hard the past few weeks so they are excited to show you around their room!  See you then!